Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

Stop Calling Me “Mister” Jonathan Craig

An occasional reminder about good manners can be helpful to all. I thus offer this chilling little study wherein a man’s insistence that formality be dropped led to the most dire consequences.

Harvey Wilson was trying his best to be a proper host, but it was difficult to restrict his thoughts to the present, to keep them from exploring the possibilities of the hours ahead. Tonight might very well be the night, he knew. And again, it might not; it might be just like any one of the previous nights when there’d been a fatal hitch at the last moment. All he could do was wait and see — and that was the worst part of all, the waiting.

Harvey’s guest took another sip of his drink and glanced about the tiny living room appreciatively. “Nice place you got here, Harve,” he said. “You say you built it all by yourself? Everything?” He had been drinking steadily ever since he arrived, and his voice was a little blurred.

Harvey nodded. “All except the plumbing, Mr. Lambert. I figured I’d better leave that to an expert.” He smiled at his wife, who sat on the sofa beside Calvin Lambert. “And Doris did some of the inside painting. Picked it up in no time at all.”

Doris crossed her legs and frowned at the wall above Harvey’s head. She was in her late twenties, a doll-faced woman with shoulder-length black hair, exquisite legs, and a lush, provocative body that in another year or two would be overripe. She, too, showed the effects of drinking a great deal, and the dark eyes behind their incredibly long lashes were very bright.

“I only did it because Harvey kept after me so,” she said defensively. “I’m really not the kind of woman who enjoys wielding a paint brush, Mr. Lambert.” She looked at her glass, then held it out toward her husband. “Refill, Harvey. And this time, for God’s sake, put some whiskey in it.”

Harvey rose, took the glass, and glanced at Lambert. “How about you, sir?” he asked. “You about ready for another?”

“Good thought, Harve,” Lambert said. He handed his glass to Harvey and nodded solemnly. “When a night’s as cold as this one, a man needs a little extra anti-freeze.”

“That’s right,” Harvey said, smiling. Lambert was probably a much better looking man at forty than he had been at twenty, Harvey reflected; two decades had touched his temples with just the right amount of gray and had erased all but a few of the acne scars.

“We must apologize for its being so chilly in here,” Doris said. “Everything about this house is too small, even the furnace.” She grimaced at the portable gas heater in the middle of the floor. “We’ve had to help the furnace along with that ever since the cold spell started.”

“Me, I’m quite comfortable,” Lambert said.

Doris would be too, Harvey thought, if she’d only wear something under her dress. But she never did. She never wore anything at all, winter or summer, but dresses and rolled stockings and high-heeled pumps.

“Two drinks coming right up,” Harvey said. “You want yours the same way, Mr. Lambert?”

“Yes,” Lambert said. “And listen here, Harve. I wish you’d call me Cal. It feels pretty awkward to drink a man’s liquor and enjoy his hospitality, and have him call you Mr. Lambert that way.” He turned to smile at Doris. “Why don’t you both call me Cal? Then it’ll be just Cal and Harve and Doris. Okay?”

Doris recrossed her legs — carelessly, the way she always did it. “That’ll be fine,” she said.

“Darn right,” Lambert said. “I don’t hold with that old theory that a man has to call another man ‘mister’ and say ‘sir’ to him and all that, just because the other man happens to be his boss. Isn’t that the way you look at it — Doris?”

“Yes,” Doris said. She glanced up at her husband. “You’ll never get those drinks made standing there like that.”

Harvey turned, pushed open the kitchen door and let it swing shut behind him. He heard the muted creak of a spring in the sofa, and a repressed giggle from Doris, and then nothing at all. He moved to the drainboard, where the whiskey and mixer were laid out.

The clock above the sink said twenty minutes past nine. Harvey was due on his job at midnight, and from then until his mid-morning lunch hour at four, he would have nothing to do but take an occasional look at the dials and gauges on the control panel in the sub-basement of Cal Lambert’s sheet-plastics factory just this side of town. He didn’t like the job, but it gave him time to study, and the pay was as good as a man with his lack of training could make anywhere else. Tonight, he looked forward to the cozy warmth of his personal cubbyhole and his stack of technical magazines.

And after all, tonight might be the night it happened.

He took his time making the drinks, humming softly to himself as he worked. When he finished with them, he took one in each hand and walked to the window that looked across the dark lot separating his house from Cal Lambert’s. Lambert, a bachelor, had moved in only three weeks ago; before that the big house had stood vacant for almost half a year. These were the only two homes in the area, because most people preferred to live either in Lairdsville, where the Lambert factory was, or out in the country proper. Harvey studied the dark outline of Lambert’s house for a long moment; then he walked back to the swinging door, pushed it open with his shoulder, and stepped into the living room.

Doris was sitting very close to Lambert now and the hem of her skirt was up above her knees. She brushed the skirt down casually and held out her hand for her drink.

“Harvey,” she said, “I thought you’d decided to distill the stuff yourself.” There was a deep flush in her cheeks and her full lips had the pouty, slightly swollen look they’d had when she and Harvey were first married and made love so violently.

Harvey handed her one of the glasses and gave the other to Lambert. “I might have to distill some, at that,” he said. “We’re running pretty low.”

“I thought I told you to bring a couple of bottles home with you this morning,” Doris said.

“You did,” Harvey said. “I forgot. Just didn’t think about it.”

“Naturally,” Doris said.

“I didn’t know we were going to have company,” Harvey said, smiling apologetically at Lambert. “I’ll take a quick run into town and pick some up.”

Lambert’s face was almost expressionless. “I’d go over to my place for some,” he said. “But I’m fresh out. A bottle or so of beer, maybe, and that’s all.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Doris said. “Harvey doesn’t mind at all.”

Lambert made a move to rise, with obviously no intention of completing it. “I’ll go with you, Harve,” he said.

“Stay where you are, Mr. Lambert,” Harvey said. “I—”

“Cal,” Lambert said. “Call me Cal, doggonit, Harve.”

“Sure, Cal. Now you stay put. It doesn’t take two full-grown men to carry a couple of little bottles.”

“Well,” Doris said, “I hope you two boys can come to some kind of an agreement. We’re going to be ready for another one pretty soon.”

Harvey laughed. “You folks listen to some records or something. I’ll be right back.” He walked to the hat tree beside the front door and took down his overcoat. There was a mirror behind the hat tree, and as Harvey buttoned up his coat he could see Cal Lambert turn to smile broadly at Doris and then look away again, lips pursed, as if he were about to whistle.

The drive to Lairdsville took less than ten minutes. Harvey parked in front of Teddy’s Taproom and went inside. There were only two men at the bar, Bill Wirt and Gus Bialis, and both of them insulted Harvey loudly and affectionately as he approached them. They were both lifelong friends of his, and, before his marriage to Doris four years ago, his constant drinking companions. At a table near the front end of the bar sat George Helm, another of Harvey’s friends, but one who didn’t drink at all.

“I’ll need a couple fifths of the usual, Ted,” Harvey said to the bartender. “And you’d better give me a couple bottles of soda to help out with the weight.”

“Check,” the bartender said, moving toward the shelves where he kept his package goods. “If you want to spoil good liquor with soda, Harvey, it’s no skin off mine.”

“Well, what do you know,” Bill Wirt said. “You and the missus must be figuring on throwing a real one, Harvey. Something special happen?”

“No,” Harvey said. “Cal Lambert dropped over. Just a neighborly visit, I guess you’d say.”

Bill looked knowingly at Gus Bialis and then back at Harvey. “You mean to say, Harvey, you left your wife there with Lambert while you traipsed off down here for liquor? Is that what you done?” He shook his head wonderingly. “Man, you sure got a world of trust in human nature. Don’t it worry you — them two being out there all alone like that?”

Harvey smiled. “Not so you could notice it, Bill.”

“Well, like I said, you sure got a lot of trust in human nature.”

“Yes,” Gus Bialis said. “He sure’n hell has, hasn’t he? Of course, that little lady of his is straighter’n a string, and we all know it — but what’s the use of tempting fate, I always say.”

“Right, Gus!” Bill said. “You said it right, by God!”

Harvey grinned, paid for his whiskey and mixer, and went back outside. George Helm was waiting for him just outside the doorway.

“I didn’t see you step out,” Harvey said. “How’ve you been, George?”

“All right,” George shrugged, not meeting Harvey’s eyes. He was somewhere in his early fifties, a short, heavy-set, balding man who made a living buying and selling second-hand farm equipment. “I kind of wanted to talk to you private, Harvey,” he said.

Harvey shifted the bottles to his other arm and nodded. “What is it, George?”

George slapped his mittened hands together and hunched his shoulders against the bitter slice of the wind. “Cold, ain’t it?”

“Sure is,” Harvey said. “What was it you wanted, George?”

“Well,” George said hesitantly, “I guess it really ain’t none of my business, when you get right down to it...” He paused. “I guess you know I get around these parts a good bit, Harvey. My type business keeps a man on the move all the time. He has to talk with a lot of people, and sometimes he hears a thing or two. You know how it is. Like maybe he hears that some man’s wife is sort of playing around with somebody else. You know what I mean, Harvey?”

“Sure, George,” Harvey said a little impatiently. “But—”

“Now listen a minute. This here’s a kind of ticklish thing I want to say, Harvey. But supposing you was to find out something like I just said? Would you tell the woman’s husband what she was up to? I mean, don’t you think a man in that position should know what’s going on?”

Harvey frowned. “Well... Well, hell, George, it’s hard to say.”

“Yes, but put yourself in his place. If you was him, wouldn’t you want to know?”

Harvey took a tentative step toward his automobile, then paused. “I guess so, George,” he said. “But no two men feel the same way. Some of them would be better off if they never found out.”

“Yes,” George persisted, “but don’t you think a man like me, when he knows something’s going on, has a duty?”

Harvey sighed and took another step towards his automobile. “That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself, George. With things like that, nobody else can make up your mind for you.”

George had moved along with him, and now he studied Harvey’s face carefully. “Supposing you put yourself in this man’s position for a minute, Harvey,” he said. “Just say you was him. If you found out your wife had been fooling around, what would you do?”

Harvey opened the car door slowly, put the bottles on the back seat, and got behind the wheel. He started to close the door, but George caught it and held it open.

“Well?” George said. “You ain’t answered my question, Harvey. If you was this husband, and knew your wife was fooling around, what would you do?”

Harvey took a deep breath. “I’d try to find out what was to blame, George,” he said. “That’s the first thing I’d do. Chances are, it’d turn out to be me.”

George’s mouth sagged open. “You?”

“That’s right,” Harvey said. “It’s always easy to blame the woman in a case like that, George. Me, I’d ask myself what I might have done to make her do what she did. I’d figure there must be something wrong with me — some lack, maybe, or something I was doing wrong that I didn’t know about.” He turned on the motor and sat listening to it, his eyes thoughtful. “And then I guess I’d sit down with her and have a long talk, George. I’d try to find out how I was failing her, and then I’d do my damnedest to make it up to her.”

George swallowed twice and shook his head incredulously. “You... you wouldn’t do anything to her? You wouldn’t take a whip to her or anything like that? You wouldn’t even do anything to the man?”

“No, George,” Harvey said quietly. “I’d know it was my fault to begin with. Why should I try to punish someone else for something I’d caused myself?”

“Lord,” George whispered. “I can’t hardly believe what I hear. I’ll just be goddamned.”

Harvey smiled. “Got to be getting home, George,” he said and shut the door.

Doris and Cal Lambert were dancing to the record player when Harvey came in with the whiskey and mixer. Both of them had obviously been at the last of the liquor Harvey had left in the kitchen, and they were dancing close together in a way that required them to move their feet scarcely at all.

Doris stopped dancing, took the bottles from Harvey’s arms, and lurched into the kitchen without a word. Her black hair was a little disheveled, Harvey noticed, and there were a number of long, horizontal wrinkles in her skirt. Cal Lambert had a self-satisfied look on his face, and the collar of his white shirt was wilted, as if he had been sweating profusely.

“Harve!” he said. “We thought you’d forgotten your way back home, boy!”

“I got tied up for a few minutes,” Harvey said, smiling.

Lambert grinned, glanced warily toward the kitchen door, and winked knowingly. “You didn’t just happen to run into something distracting, did you, Harve? Something about five-two and oh boy, maybe?”

Lambert was very drunk, Harvey saw; the heavy, rapid drinking had finally caught up with him. He wasn’t quite so drunk as Doris, of course, but it wouldn’t be long.

“I thought maybe you came across a little fluffy something on a bar stool. You know, Harve?”

Harvey laughed. “Nothing like that, Mr. Lambert.”

“Cal.”

“Yes, Cal. No, it wasn’t anything like that.”

Lambert shook his head sadly. “Too bad, Harve, old man. Maybe better luck next time.”

Doris returned with drinks for herself and Lambert and a glass of ginger ale for Harvey. “You have to be at work soon, Harvey,” she said thickly. “I didn’t think you’d want anything more to drink.”

“No,” Harvey said. “I don’t think I’d better.”

“Drink all you want,” Lambert said. “Hell, I’m the boss of that place. If you want to drink, Harve, by God, you drink!”

Harvey smiled. “The ginger ale’ll be fine, Cal. Just fine.”

Doris raised her glass and, watching Harvey unblinkingly over the rim, drank steadily until the glass was empty. “There,” she said. “I guess you saw that, didn’t you, Harvey? That’s the way it’s supposed to be done.” She turned to smile at Lambert. “Show him, Cal.”

Lambert hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and emptied his glass. There were tears in his eyes when he finished, and he laughed as he wiped them away with the back of his hand. “Boy,” he said. “I haven’t done anything like that since I was in high school.”

“I could never do it, even then,” Harvey said.

“Oh, be quiet, Harvey,” Doris said. “You’d better think about getting to work.”

Harvey glanced at his wrist watch. It was much later than he’d thought, almost a quarter past eleven. “I guess you’re right,” he said.

Doris smiled at Lambert and took the empty glasses back into the kitchen.

“A shame you have to leave, Harve,” Lambert said.

Harvey smiled and shrugged.

Lambert went on about what a shame it was until Doris came back with fresh drinks. She staggered over to the sofa, sat down heavily, and crossed her legs — apparently oblivious of the skirt that settled a good four inches above the taut round garters that encircled her white thighs.

“Come sit over here, Cal,” she said.

Lambert stared at her for a moment, then moistened his lips and looked along his eyes at Harvey. “I think I’d better be going, Harve,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harvey said. “No use breaking up the party just because I have to go to work.”

Lambert smiled uncertainly, trying hard to keep his gaze away from Doris. “Well... if you’re sure, Harve. I mean, I wouldn’t want to—”

Harvey laughed. “Don’t give it another thought, Cal. I know my wife — and I know you. Why it’d be one hell of a world if a man couldn’t even trust his own wife and his own boss together.”

Grinning, Lambert slapped Harvey on the shoulder. “By gosh, that’s right, Harve. It’d sure be some world, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Harvey said, smiling. “It sure would.” He looked at his watch again. “Damn, it’s almost eleven-thirty. I’d better be getting along.” He moved toward the front door. Doris glanced up at him sullenly, then shrugged one shoulder and took a long pull at her drink.

Harvey opened the door and stood for a moment with his hand on the knob. “Well, good night,” he said. “Sorry I can’t stay and—”

“For God’s sake,” Doris said. “Either come in or out. This place is cold enough without your letting all that air in here.”

Harvey went out, quickly, not saying a word.

At exactly four a.m., Harvey made a last-minute check of the control panel in the sub-basement of Cal Lambert’s factory, took his coat from the hook near the door, and walked rapidly along the dimly lighted passageway that led to the parking area at the rear of the building.

This looked like the night, he reflected. If he could have that short stretch of road between the factory and his house all to himself, just this once, it would be the night. This was his fourth try; he had a feeling it would be the last.

Harvey had not parked his car in the parking area, but at the end of the long drive at the rear of it. He knew the drive had sufficient incline to permit him to start his car by coasting it — which meant that the elderly nightwatchman in the upper part of the factory would not be able to hear the motor start. And there was no chance of his seeing Harvey drive off, either, for the rear wall of the factory had no windows at all.

No, the nightwatchman wasn’t a problem; the only problem was that short stretch of road. At four o’clock m the morning, you wouldn’t think that there’d be any traffic at all along it, especially on a winter night as cold as this one. But there had been on the other nights. There’d been someone on the road on each of Harvey’s three previous tries. He’d recognized neither the vehicles nor the drivers, but he had preferred three consecutive postponements to taking the smallest unnecessary risk. After all, what real difference did a day or a week make? Or even a month? There was no real hurry. If things went wrong again tonight, there’d be another night, and another.

But that feeling was there. It was going to be tonight; Harvey was almost certain of it.

He got into his car, switched on the ignition, and released the brake. The car began to inch forward, then to pick up momentum. Harvey waited until it reached the end of the incline, and then eased it into gear and listened to the tiny flutter of the motor as it caught hold and drew the car ahead. There had been hardly any sound at all.

There had been no other vehicles on the road when Harvey had driven along it a little over four hours ago, and there were none now. There might be one or more on his return trip, though, and that was what concerned him most. It would mean that he would have to go back to his house and undo what he had done.

He pulled off the road, drove along the driveway that led to the rear of his house, and parked the car. The house was dark and silent, and Harvey smiled grimly. Everything was as it should be. He got out of the car, crossed silently to the back door, and inserted his key in the lock.

He walked noiselessly through the kitchen, avoiding the creaking board midway across the floor, and opened the door to the living room. There was no one there — and that, too, was as it should be. He moved down the short corridor to the bedroom and slowly nudged the door open with his fingertips.

They were there. Just as he had expected them to be. Just as he had found them three times before. The moonlight slanted through the window. Lying there beside Cal Lambert, Doris looked even smaller than she actually was, almost childlike. Both she and Lambert were breathing very slowly, very deeply, sleeping the trancelike sleep of alcohol and exhaustion. Harvey didn’t have to look at the alarm clock on the chair beside the bed to know that it would be set for eight a.m., just as it had been on all the other mornings. He could picture how it had been on those other mornings — Lambert waking and dressing hurriedly and cutting across the lot to his own house, and Doris getting into her house dress and busying herself in the kitchen preparing breakfast for the husband who would be home in less than twenty minutes.

Harvey stepped close to the bed and looked down at Doris for a full minute while his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark. She was still wearing her pumps and stockings, he noticed now. He bent down and trailed his fingertips from garter to hip, and then suddenly took the tiny fold of flesh at her waist between his thumb and forefinger and pinched it as viciously as he could.

She didn’t stir. Harvey put the palm of his right hand flat against Lambert’s nose and pushed hard. Lambert turned his head slightly, but that was all.

Harvey sighed thankfully. He didn’t have to worry about either of them waking up too soon; that was for sure.

Harvey stepped back from the bed and glanced about the small, low-ceilinged room. In every way, things were exactly as they should be. He turned and went into the living room and returned with the portable gas heater. He set it down midway between the bed and the window, lighted it, and then checked the window to make sure it was tightly closed. There was only one window and one door, and when closed, neither of them admitted any air whatever.

Harvey took one last look at Doris; then he closed the door behind him and left the house by the same way he had entered.

He met no other vehicles on his short drive back to the factory, and he saw no one when he parked his car behind the building and walked along the passageway to his engine room. He checked his control panel and then sat down in his chair and looked at his watch.

He had been gone exactly thirty-four minutes.

It had taken just thirty-four minutes to rectify the mistake he had made in marrying Doris and to open the door on an entirely new life for himself. Or rather, to recover the life he had given up when he married. He could go back to school now, and in two years’ time he would have the training he needed to be more than just another boiler-watcher. It was too bad he couldn’t merely have divorced Doris, but that had been impossible. She would have imprisoned him in an alimony trap. Vengefully, she would have kept him in it and that would have made it impossible for him to go back to school, that would have kept him a nothing man in a nothing job.

But now, with Doris dead, he could go back to school. The policy on Doris’ life, taken out when they were first married, was for only two thousand dollars, but there would be the money he’d get for his house and lot — say thirteen thousand — and another thousand or fifteen hundred for his car. Pretty nearly fifteen thousand dollars. Enough. He’d be able to live well during the two years of his schooling. He thought of Cal Lambert and smiled. There’d even be enough for that occasional bit of fluff on a bar stool that Cal had joked about. It was funny, he reflected, but by killing Lambert along with Doris he had probably knocked himself out of a job. Not that it mattered; he would have quit soon anyway.

At eight o’clock the next morning, Harvey initialed the control sheet, said good morning to his relief, and went upstairs to the factory cafeteria to have breakfast.

“You and your old lady feuding?” the cashier laughed, totaling up Harvey’s check on her register.

Harvey smiled. “What makes you ask that?”

The cashier winked. “Lots of men have their breakfast in here for that very reason, Harvey. You’d be surprised.”

“No feuding,” Harvey said, letting his smile widen. “We had a little party last night. I figured I’d let her sleep.”

The cashier looked at him admiringly. “More men should be that thoughtful,” she said.

Harvey paid his check and took his tray to a table in the front of the room, pretending not to notice George Helm seated alone at a table near the wall. George made good money with his speculations in used farm equipment, but he lived in a cheap room in a rooming house and never failed to take his meals in the factory cafeteria. He always said it was because the cafeteria was a good place to make business contacts, but Harvey knew very well that George ate there solely because of the very low prices.

Harvey had decided to let George discover the bodies. It would be better that way. He had computed his time very carefully. He had known exactly how long the two people and the gas heater would take to exhaust the oxygen in the small bedroom — at which time, of course, the flame would have gone out and the heater would have filled the room with gas.

Harvey was glad to see George Helm sitting there. If George, however, had missed breakfast this morning, or had come in later, Harvey could have called on any of several others.

“Harvey!” George called to him. “Over here. What’re you trying to do, give me the high-hat?”

Harvey smiled, checked his course, and went over to George’s table. “Glad to see you, George,” he said as he sat down. “In fact, I was coming over to your office right after I had breakfast.”

George hunched his short, heavy body a little closer to Harvey and looked at him expectantly. “You mean about what we was discussing last night, Harvey?”

Harvey smiled. “No, George. I was wondering if you were interested in second-hand furniture.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about outfitting the house with new stuff, from top to bottom. You interested?”

George nodded. “Sure. What’re you asking?”

Harvey took a forkful of his eggs. “Suppose you take a look at it,” he said. “I know you’ll do right by me, George.”

“Sure,” George said. “That’s one thing you can count on, Harvey. When’d you want me to look at it?”

“This morning okay?”

“Couldn’t be better. You got some nice things out there, Harvey.”

“I was thinking I might look around the stores this morning,” Harvey said. “Why don’t you just drive on out there, George? Doris’ll be glad to show you around.” He paused. “One thing, though. She might be sleeping a little late. If she doesn’t answer the bell, go around to the bedroom window and knock on it with your car keys or something. That’ll raise her.”

“Sure,” George said, getting to his feet. “I think we’ll be able to make a good deal, Harvey.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” George said, and turned toward the door.

“You haven’t finished your breakfast,” Harvey said.

“Business first,” George called back over his shoulder as he walked rapidly toward the door.

Harvey ate slowly, enjoying his food for the first time in months. He wouldn’t have long to wait, he knew. It was only a matter of minutes. George Helm was probably rapping on the bedroom window at this very moment — rapping and then, naturally, looking inside at the man and woman on the bed. Maybe he had already discovered them and was on his way back to town. Much better having George the first person on the scene. And George would have to come back to town, for Harvey had no phone, and Cal Lambert wouldn’t be available to loan George his. All George could do was bring the bad news back to town with him.

Harvey finished eating, went back to the service counter for a second cup of coffee, and lighted a cigarette. He had no intention of going over to Franklin’s to price new furniture. George would look for him in the cafeteria first anyhow.

He sipped at his coffee, savoring it, making it last through these final few minutes. It was strange, he thought, but Doris was already beginning to lose reality for him. And as for Cal Lambert... Lambert had been just a prop, just a thing to explain why Doris had gone to sleep with the heater on and the window shut and the door closed.

Harvey mashed out his cigarette carefully, rose, and walked outside. It would be better to receive the news on the street, he decided. Besides, there was just a chance that George Helm might waste time by going over to Franklin’s after all. He crossed the street and paused in front of the bank, as if waiting for it to open; and then, as he leaned back against the wall to light another cigarette, he saw George’s ancient car careening down the street toward him and he smiled.

George braked the car to a shuddering stop, leaped out, and ran over to Harvey. His face was a sickly white and his eyes seemed ready to burst from his head.

“Harvey!” he said hoarsely. “Harvey! Oh, my God!”

Harvey looked at him questioningly. “You look like you’d seen a ghost, George. What’s wrong?”

“Harvey,” George said. “They’re out there.”

“They?” Harvey asked. “What do you mean?”

“I saw them in there,” George said, glancing about him wildly. “On the bed. I knew something was mighty wrong, and I busted the glass out, and then all that gas hit me in the face and I—”

“George!” Harvey said sharply. “Get hold of yourself. What are you talking about?”

“My God,” George said. “I don’t hardly know how to tell you, Harvey. It... it was your wife — her and Cal Lambert.”

“What!” Harvey exclaimed.

“Jesus, I hate saying this, Harvey. They was on the bed, see, and they’d left the gas heater on, and it must have gone out during the night. They — they’re dead, Harvey — both of them. The gas killed ’em both.”

Harvey clutched George by both shoulders and shook him. “Killed them? What the hell are you saying, George?”

“They was on the bed,” George said raggedly. “Laying there naked as they could get. There was a bottle on the floor beside the bed. I guess they must have passed out or something.”

“You’re lying!” Harvey shouted. “Damn you, George! You’re lying to me!”

“No,” George said, almost sobbing. “No, I ain’t, Harvey. You can still smell the gas on me. It almost got me, too, when I busted in there. It... it’s just plain hell out there, Harvey.”

Harvey stared at George for a long moment; then he turned, walked to George’s car, and sank down on the running board and covered his face with his hands.

It’s all over now but the acting, he thought. Everything came off exactly the way I wanted it to. I’m set for life, really set...

George Helm walked over slowly and put his hand on Harvey’s shoulder very gently. “You poor guy,” he said. “I wish there was something I could do for you.”